Breach at Thermal dump site causes contaminated water to flood Thermal mobile home parks

Riverside County declared a local emergency this week after discovering that flash flooding from last week's storm had caused potentially contaminated water from a toxic dump site near Thermal to flood into three nearby mobile home parks.

County crews surveying damage over the Labor Day weekend, after nearly 3" of rain fell Friday in some eastern parts of the Coachella Valley, found a protective berm around the long-closed "Lawson dump" had been breached, as had a covering over it, County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen wrote in the emergency declaration.

On Saturday, the county issued an evacuation warning for the San Jose Mobile Home Park, Vargas Mobile Home Park and Gamez Mobile Home Park, with a shelter set up for residents at the Galilee Center in Mecca.

But none of the parks' residents had chosen to evacuate as of Tuesday, Shane Reichardt, spokesperson for the Riverside County Emergency Management Department, said in an interview. People with the county sheriff's and fire departments went door to door notifying residents of the evacuation warning, Reichardt said, and public health workers followed up with check-ins.

TODEC Legal Center was also assisting with the county’s outreach efforts at the parks. Luz Gallegos, the nonprofit’s executive director, said some residents didn’t want to evacuate due to concerns their belongings would be stolen in the process.

Some had gotten the word about the potential contamination from outreach officials, but others still hadn't days after the storm.

“Some people are out working or they’re not available, or a lot of people here in this type of community are afraid to open the doors to just anybody,” Alberto Cruz, a lead organizer with TODEC, said as he and others with the organization went around Vargas Mobile Home Park on Wednesday to speak with residents. “Usually how the community here learns things is mostly through word of mouth.”

At homes where no one came to the door, the TODEC group left flyers in Spanish.

County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, who represents the Coachella Valley, described the flooding stemming from the dump as “a public health emergency,” while a statement from the county said all residents should avoid contact with rainwater and runoff until further notice.

Officials from the county's environmental health department took samples of the rainwater Tuesday to test for any toxic materials, with results expected within two days. Reichardt said the delay in rainwater testing until Tuesday was due to county officials being unable to initially access the areas most impacted by flooding.

A spokesperson for Riverside County's public health agency said it has assessment teams in the area who are speaking with residents to see whether they've had any negative health effects.

"Once that health assessment is completed and the test results are back soon, we should have a better idea of the situation," said the spokesperson, Jose Arballo Jr. with Riverside University Health System-Public Health.

Residents ‘really hurting right now’

While the flooding was causing major access issues — only cars with four-wheel drive could get to some parts of the parks, Gallegos said — TODEC officials were focused on ensuring people were aware of the potentially dangerous health impacts from the dump site.

Gallegos said the impacts from the weekend storm, along with Tropical Storm Hilary, underscore the need for more infrastructure in the area, adding the parks’ communities “are really hurting right now.”

“Not only Hilary, but now this, it’s a struggle that never ends, and it’s very layered for these populations,” Gallegos said, noting some residents also have less work in the aftermath of the storms.

By the time Cruz and his group went Wednesday around Vargas Mobile Home Park — the closest of the three parks to the dump site — the water there had largely receded, with most of the roads and yards dry. But spots of muddy water still lingered in some areas near people’s homes, and long stretches of brownish-green runoff water stood just along the park’s front entrance, as well as in bordering date palm groves.

Cruz noted some mobile home parks in the area have recurring issues with arsenic contamination in their drinking water, but he said the primary concern with the storm runoff this week was related to physical contact.

TODEC officials will continue to monitor the situation this week, Cruz said, and they’ll be ready to do further outreach depending on the results of the county’s testing on the surrounding storm water.

“If the county says anything is a hazard or a health issue, we’ll be aware of that so we can let our people know,” Cruz said.

Dump has had known issues with toxins since 1990s

The dump, which was owned by Kim Lawson and has been closed since 2007, has a history of environmental issues going back decades.

The EPA says that in 1999 it issued a notice of violation to the operators of the dump that was ignored. Three years later, the EPA found elevated levels of dioxin, which is a highly toxic chemical that is known to cause cancer, reproductive issues and other problems.

Later that year, the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians began monitoring the air along the tribe’s border with the dump and found readings showing the presence of particulates in concentrations above “levels considered safe to human health and the environment.” In 2003, the EPA ordered the dump’s owners to stop burning solid waste at the site after it says it ignored a similar order from the tribe.

In 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that the dump had been closed after the EPA found arsenic, asbestos, dioxin and other chemicals that resulted from the burning of paint cans and wood treated with hazardous chemicals. That same year, a Riverside County judge fined the dump and ordered him to pay $46.9 million to clean up the site.

The Times also reported that fires continued to be an issue at the dump in 2007 even after it was closed, with many of them believed to have started from “spontaneous combustion” while others were labeled “suspicious.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Toxic water from dump site floods three mobile home parks in Thermal